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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games > Baseball

Sports Illustrated The New York Mets at 60 - Celebrating Six Decades of Amazin' Baseball (Hardcover): Sports Illustrated The New York Mets at 60 - Celebrating Six Decades of Amazin' Baseball (Hardcover)
R791 Discovery Miles 7 910 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Celebrate the championship glory, Hall of Fame personalities, and passionate fans that make the New York Mets one of the most historic franchises in baseball.   Once an intrepid expansion club, the New York Mets have now thrilled their loyal fans for six decades. Sports Illustrated™ celebrates the franchise with The New York Mets at 60, an extraordinary collection of classic stories and photographs from the pages of SI. This commemorative book salutes the World Series teams of 1969 and 1972 while spotlighting legendary stars like Casey Stengel, Tom Seaver, Keith Hernandez, Mike Piazza, and David Wright. From the Polo Grounds to Shea Stadium to Citi Field, fans will unearth countless gems from the Mets' past on each page of this celebration.

Playing with Tigers - A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties (Hardcover): George Gmelch Playing with Tigers - A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties (Hardcover)
George Gmelch
R791 R677 Discovery Miles 6 770 Save R114 (14%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In 1965 George Gmelch signed a contract to play professional baseball with the Detroit Tigers organization. Gmelch grew up sheltered in an all-white, affluent San Francisco suburb, and he knew little of the world outside. Over the next four seasons, he came of age in baseball's Minor Leagues through experiences ranging from learning the craft of the professional game to becoming conscious of race and class for the first time. Playing with Tigers is not a typical baseball memoir. Now a well-known anthropologist, Gmelch recounts a baseball education unlike any other as he got to know small-town life across the United States against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, civil rights protests, and the emergence of counterculture. The social and political turmoil of the times spilled into baseball, and Gmelch experienced the consequences firsthand as he played out his career in the Jim Crow South. Playing with Tigers immerses the reader in the life of the Minor Leagues, capturing the gritty, insular, and humorous life and culture of Minor League baseball during a period when both the author and the country were undergoing profound changes.

No Place I Would Rather Be - Roger Angell and a Life in Baseball Writing (Paperback): Joe Bonomo No Place I Would Rather Be - Roger Angell and a Life in Baseball Writing (Paperback)
Joe Bonomo
R584 R487 Discovery Miles 4 870 Save R97 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Legendary New Yorker writer and editor Roger Angell is considered to be among the greatest baseball writers to date. He brought a fan’s love, a fiction writer’s eye, and an essayist’s sensibility to the game. No other baseball writer has a through line quite like Angell’s: born in 1920, he was an avid fan of the game by the Depression era, when he watched Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig hit home runs at Yankee Stadium. He began writing about baseball in 1962 and continued through the decades, blogging about baseball’s postseasons, until shortly before his death in 2022. No Place I Would Rather Be tells the story of Angell’s contribution to sportswriting, including his early short stories, pieces for the New Yorker, autobiographical essays, seven books, and the common threads that run through them. His work reflects rapidly changing mores as well as evolving forces on and off the field, reacting to a half century of cultural turmoil, shifts in trends and professional attitudes of ballplayers and executives, and a complex, discerning, and diverse audience. Baseball is both change and constancy, and Angell was the preeminent essayist of that paradox. His writing encompassed fondness for the past, a sober reckoning of the present, and hope for the future of the game. This edition features a new epilogue.

The Baseball Film - A Cultural and Transmedia History (Paperback): Aaron Baker The Baseball Film - A Cultural and Transmedia History (Paperback)
Aaron Baker
R750 Discovery Miles 7 500 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Baseball has long been viewed as the Great American Pastime, so it is no surprise that the sport has inspired many Hollywood films and television series. But how do these works depict the game, its players, fans, and place in American society? This study offers an extensive look at nearly one hundred years of baseball-themed movies, documentaries, and TV shows. Film and sports scholar Aaron Baker examines works like A League of their Own (1992) and Sugar (2008), which dramatize the underrepresented contributions of female and immigrant players, alongside classic baseball movies like The Natural that are full of nostalgia for a time when native-born white men could use the game to achieve the American dream. He further explores how biopics have both mythologized and demystified such legendary figures as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson and Fernando Valenzuela. The Baseball Film charts the variety of ways that Hollywood presents the game as integral to American life, whether showing little league as a site of parent-child bonding or depicting fans' lifelong love affairs with their home teams. Covering everything from Bull Durham (1988) to The Bad News Bears (1976), this book offers an essential look at one of the most cinematic of all sports.

Scouting and Scoring - How We Know What We Know about Baseball (Hardcover): Christopher Phillips Scouting and Scoring - How We Know What We Know about Baseball (Hardcover)
Christopher Phillips
R671 R434 Discovery Miles 4 340 Save R237 (35%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

An in-depth look at the intersection of judgment and statistics in baseball Scouting and scoring are considered fundamentally different ways of ascertaining value in baseball. Scouting seems to rely on experience and intuition, scoring on performance metrics and statistics. In Scouting and Scoring, Christopher Phillips rejects these simplistic divisions. He shows how both scouts and scorers rely on numbers, bureaucracy, trust, and human labor in order to make sound judgments about the value of baseball players. Tracing baseball's story from the nineteenth century to today, Phillips explains that the sport was one of the earliest and most consequential fields for the introduction of numerical analysis. New technologies and methods of data collection were supposed to enable teams to quantify the drafting and managing of players-replacing scouting with scoring. But that's not how things turned out. Over the decades, scouting and scoring started looking increasingly similar. Scouts expressed their judgments in highly formulaic ways, using numerical grades and scientific instruments to evaluate players. Scorers drew on moral judgments, depended on human labor to maintain and correct data, and designed bureaucratic systems to make statistics appear reliable. From the invention of official scorers and Statcast to the creation of the Major League Scouting Bureau, the history of baseball reveals the inextricable connections between human expertise and data science. A unique consideration of the role of quantitative measurement and human judgment, Scouting and Scoring provides an entirely fresh understanding of baseball by showing what the sport reveals about reliable knowledge in the modern world.

Uncle Robbie (Paperback): Jack Kavanagh, Norman L Macht Uncle Robbie (Paperback)
Jack Kavanagh, Norman L Macht
R364 R309 Discovery Miles 3 090 Save R55 (15%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Hall of Fame member Wilbert Robinson began his career as a catcher. As a Baltimore Oriole in the 1890s the hard-nosed but congenial receiver joined John McGraw, Wee Willie Keeler, and other greats on the roughest team of the game's toughest era. He went on to make a reputation with McGraw's New York Giants as a great developer of pitchers. Subsequently he took over the Brooklyn Dodgers, quickly turning them into pennant winners and gradually becoming the borough's beloved Uncle Robbie.

Baseball Research Journal (BRJ), Volume 43 #2 (Paperback): Society for American Baseball Research (Sabr) Baseball Research Journal (BRJ), Volume 43 #2 (Paperback)
Society for American Baseball Research (Sabr)
R418 R354 Discovery Miles 3 540 Save R64 (15%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The flagship publication of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), the "Baseball Research Journal" is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed publication presenting the best in SABR member research on baseball. History, biography, economics, physics, psychology, game theory, sociology and culture, records, and many other disciplines are represented to expand our knowledge of baseball as it is, was, and could be played.

Mallparks - Baseball Stadiums and the Culture of Consumption (Hardcover): Michael T. Friedman Mallparks - Baseball Stadiums and the Culture of Consumption (Hardcover)
Michael T. Friedman
R1,257 Discovery Miles 12 570 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In Mallparks, Michael T. Friedman observes that as cathedrals represented power relations in medieval towns and skyscrapers epitomized those within industrial cities, sports stadiums exemplify urban American consumption at the turn of the twenty-first century. Grounded in Henri Lefebvre and George Ritzer's spatial theories in their analyses of consumption spaces, Mallparks examines how the designers of this generation of baseball stadiums follow the principles of theme park and shopping mall design to create highly effective and efficient consumption sites. In his exploration of these contemporary cathedrals of sport and consumption, Friedman discusses the history of stadium design, the amenities and aesthetics of stadium spaces, and the intentions and conceptions of architects, team officials, and civic leaders. He grounds his analysis in case studies of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore; Fenway Park in Boston; Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles; Nationals Park in Washington, DC; Target Field in Minneapolis; and Truist Park in Atlanta.

Foul Ball (Paperback): Jim Bouton Foul Ball (Paperback)
Jim Bouton
R493 Discovery Miles 4 930 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
28: A Photographic Tribute to Buster Posey (Hardcover): Brad Mangin 28: A Photographic Tribute to Buster Posey (Hardcover)
Brad Mangin; Brian Murphy; Foreword by Buster Posey
R723 Discovery Miles 7 230 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Longtime sports photographer Brad Mangin teams up with Buster Posey himself in this visual celebration of the star catcher's twelve seasons with the San Francisco Giants. Packed with over 150 photographs, 28: A Photographic Tribute to Buster Posey captures Buster's entire career, from the first time he stepped foot onto the field for the Giants back in 2009 all the way to his final at-bat in 2021. One of the most beloved players in Giants history, the rookie catcher helped carry the franchise to its first World Series championship in San Francisco in 2010, and from there, the rising star carried the Giants to win two more World Series in 2012 and 2014-all brilliantly documented by Mangin.With an introduction from veteran sportswriter and San Francisco radio host Brian Murphy, along with essays from Buster and his teammates, managers, and other sports luminaries-including Mike Krukow & Duane Kuiper, Bruce Bochy, Matt Cain, Brandon Crawford, Gabe Kapler, Hunter Pence, Sergio Romo, Logan Webb, and Barry Zito-28 tells the story of Buster's illustrious career from the heartfelt perspective of those who know him best.Off the field, Buster used his platform to help children, and now his legacy continues to transform lives. He and his wife, Kristen, created and nurtured BP28, a charity that has raised over $4 million since 2016 in its endeavor to improve outcomes and raise awareness of pediatric cancer. Kristen also shares that story here, and a portion of the proceeds from this book will benefit their foundation.

The Called Shot - Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932 (Paperback): Thomas... The Called Shot - Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932 (Paperback)
Thomas Wolf
R765 R643 Discovery Miles 6 430 Save R122 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Named Best Baseball Book of 2020 by Sports Collectors Digest 2021 SABR Seymour Medal Finalist In the summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a troubled country—and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same edginess that pervaded the national scene. On-the-field fights were as common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs’ shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in what would be Babe Ruth’s last appearance in the fall classic. After the Cubs lost the first two games in New York, the series resumed in Chicago at Wrigley Field, with Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt cheering for the visiting Yankees from the box seats behind the Yankees’ dugout. In the top of the fifth inning the game took a historic turn. As Ruth was jeered mercilessly by Cubs players and fans, he gestured toward the outfield and then blasted a long home run. After Ruth circled the bases, Roosevelt exclaimed, “Unbelievable!†Ruth’s homer set off one of baseball’s longest-running and most intense debates: did Ruth, in fact, call his famous home run? Rich with historical context and detail, The Called Shot dramatizes the excitement of a baseball season during one of America’s most chaotic summers.  

Faithful to Fenway - Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark (Paperback): Michael Ian Borer Faithful to Fenway - Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark (Paperback)
Michael Ian Borer
R708 Discovery Miles 7 080 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

An unforgettable pilgrimage through America's oldest major league ballpark The Green Monster. Pesky's Pole. The Lone Red Seat. Yawkey Way. To baseball fans this list of bizarre phrases evokes only one place: Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Built in 1912, Fenway Park is Americas oldest major league ballpark still in use. In Faithful to Fenway, Michael Ian Borer takes us out to Fenway where we sit in cramped wooden seats (often with obstructed views of the playing field), where there is a hand-operated scoreboard and an average attendance of 20,000 fewer fans than most stadiums, and where every game has been sold out since May of 2003. There is no Hard Rock Cafe (like Toronto's Skydome), no swimming pool (like Arizona's Chase Field), and definitely no sushi (which has become a fan favorite from Baltimore to Seattle). As Borer tells us in this captivating book, Fenway is short on comfort but long on character. Faithful to Fenway investigates the mystique of the ballpark. Borer, who lived in Boston before and after the Red Sox historic 2004 World Series win, draws on interviews with Red Sox players, including Jason Varitek and Carl Yastrzemski, management, including Larry Lucchino and John Henry, groundskeepers, vendors, and scores of fans to uncover what the park means for Boston and the people who revere it. Borer argues that Fenway is nothing less than a national icon, more than worthy of the banner outside the stadium that proclaims, "America's Most Beloved Ballpark". Certainly as one of New England's greatest landmarks, Fenway captures the hearts and imaginations of a deferential and devoted public. There are T-shirts, bumper stickers, banners, and snow globes that honor the ballpark. Fenway shows up in popular films, novels, television commercials, and in replicated form in people's backyards-and coming in 2008 to Quincy, Massachusetts, is Mini-Fenway Park, a replica stadium built especially for kids. Full of legendary stories, amusing anecdotes, and the shared triumph and tragedy of the Red Sox and their fans, Faithful to Fenway offers a fresh and insightful perspective, offering readers an unforgettable pilgrimage to the mecca of baseball.

The Chicago Tribune Book of the Chicago Cubs - A Decade-By-Decade History (Hardcover): Dan Mcgrath The Chicago Tribune Book of the Chicago Cubs - A Decade-By-Decade History (Hardcover)
Dan Mcgrath; Foreword by Joe Knowles, Dan Mann
R1,277 R1,079 Discovery Miles 10 790 Save R198 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Chicago Tribune Book of the Chicago Cubs is a decade-by-decade look at one of baseball's most beloved if hard-luck teams, starting with the franchise's beginnings in 1876 as the Chicago White Stockings and ending with the newfound success of Joe Maddon's present-day team. For more than a century, the Chicago Tribune has documented every Cubs season through original reporting, photography, and box scores. For the first time, this mountain of Cubs history has been mined and curated by the paper's sports department into a single one-of-a-kind volume. Each era in Cubs history includes its own timeline, profiles of key players and coaches, and feature stories that highlight it all, from the heavy hitters to the no-hitters to the one-hit wonders. And of course, you can't talk about the Cubs without talking about Wrigley Field. In this book, readers will find a complete history of that most sacred of American stadiums, where Hack Wilson batted in 191 runs-still the major-league record-in 1930, where Sammy Sosa earned the moniker "Slammin' Sammy," and where one day, without a doubt, the Cubs will once again play their way into the World Series. And maybe even win it ...The award-winning journalists, photographers, and editors of the Chicago Tribune have produced a comprehensive collector's item that every Cubs fan will love.

Playing Through the Pain - Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession That Changed Baseball Forever (Paperback): Dan Good Playing Through the Pain - Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession That Changed Baseball Forever (Paperback)
Dan Good
R298 Discovery Miles 2 980 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The powerful story of an essential baseball lifeIn Playing Through the Pain: Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession That Changed Baseball Forever, writer Dan Good seeks to make sense of MLB MVP Ken Caminiti’s fascinating, troubled life. Good began researching Caminiti in 2012 and conducted his first interviews for his biography in 2013. Since then he’s interviewed nearly 400 people, providing him with an exclusive and exhaustive view into Caminiti’s addictions, use of steroids, baseball successes, and inner turmoil. Decades later, the full truth about Major League Baseball’s steroids era remains elusive, and the story of Caminiti, the player who opened the lid on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball has never been properly told. A gritty third baseman known for his diving stops, cannon arm, and switch-hit power, Caminiti voluntarily admitted in a 2002 Sports Illustrated cover story that he used steroids during his career, including his 1996 MVP season, and guessed that half of the players were using performance-enhancing drugs. “I’ve made a ton of mistakes,†he said. “I don’t think using steroids is one of them.†Good’s on-the-record sources include Caminiti’s steroids supplier, who has never come forward, discussing in detail his efforts to set up drug programs for Caminiti and dozens of other MLB players during the late 1990s; people who attended rehab with Caminiti and revealed the secret inner trauma that fueled his addictions; hundreds of Caminiti’s baseball teammates and coaches, from Little League to the major leagues, who adored and respected him while struggling to understand how to help him amid a culture that cultivated substance abuse; childhood friends who were drawn to his daring personality, warmth, and athleticism; and the teenager at the center of Caminiti’s October 2004 trip to New York City during which he overdosed and died.

No Place I Would Rather Be - Roger Angell and a Life in Baseball Writing (Hardcover): Joe Bonomo No Place I Would Rather Be - Roger Angell and a Life in Baseball Writing (Hardcover)
Joe Bonomo
R747 R623 Discovery Miles 6 230 Save R124 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Legendary New Yorker writer and editor Roger Angell is considered to be among the greatest baseball writers to date. He brought a fan’s love, a fiction writer’s eye, and an essayist’s sensibility to the game. No other baseball writer has a through line quite like Angell’s: born in 1920, he was an avid fan of the game by the Depression era, when he watched Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig hit home runs at Yankee Stadium. He began writing about baseball in 1962 and continued through the decades, blogging about baseball’s postseasons, until shortly before his death in 2022. No Place I Would Rather Be tells the story of Angell’s contribution to sportswriting, including his early short stories, pieces for the New Yorker, autobiographical essays, seven books, and the common threads that run through them. His work reflects rapidly changing mores as well as evolving forces on and off the field, reacting to a half century of cultural turmoil, shifts in trends and professional attitudes of ballplayers and executives, and a complex, discerning, and diverse audience. Baseball is both change and constancy, and Angell was the preeminent essayist of that paradox. His writing encompassed fondness for the past, a sober reckoning of the present, and hope for the future of the game. This edition features a new epilogue.

My Dad, Yogi - A Memoir of Family and Baseball (Paperback): Dale Berra, Mark Ribowsky My Dad, Yogi - A Memoir of Family and Baseball (Paperback)
Dale Berra, Mark Ribowsky
R418 R346 Discovery Miles 3 460 Save R72 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Everyone knows Yogi Berra, the American icon. He was the backbone of the New York Yankees through ten World Series Championships, managed the National League Champion New York Mets in 1973, and his inscrutable Yogi-isms remain an indelible part of our lexicon. But no one knew him like his family did. My Dad, Yogi is Dale Berra's story of his unshakeable bond with his father, as well as a unique and intimate perspective on one of the great sports figures of the 20th Century. When Yogi wasn't playing or coaching, or otherwise in the public eye, he was home in the New Jersey suburbs, spending time with his beloved wife, Carmen, and his three boys, Larry, Tim, and Dale. Dale chronicles--as only a son could--his family's history, his parents' enduring relationship, and his dad's storied career. Throughout Dale's youth, he had a firsthand look at the Major Leagues, often by his dad's side during Yogi's years as a coach and manager. Dale got to know players like Tom Seaver, Bud Harrelson, and Cleon Jones. Mickey Mantle, Don Larsen, and Phil Rizzuto were lifelong family friends. Dale and his brothers all became professional athletes, following in their dad's footsteps. Dale came up with a great Pittsburgh Pirates team, playing shortstop for several years before he was traded to the New York Yankees and briefly united with his dad. But there were extraordinary challenges. Dale was implicated in a major cocaine scandal involving some of the biggest names in the sport, and his promising career was cut short by his drug problem. Yogi supported his son all along, ultimately staging an intervention. Dale's life was saved by his father's love, and My Dad, Yogi is Dale's tribute, and a must-have for baseball fans and fathers and sons everywhere.

New York Times Story of the Yankees (Revised and Updated): 1903-Present - 390 Articles, Profiles & Essays (Paperback): Bill... New York Times Story of the Yankees (Revised and Updated): 1903-Present - 390 Articles, Profiles & Essays (Paperback)
Bill Pennington, Dave Anderson, The New York; Foreword by Alec Baldwin
R700 R596 Discovery Miles 5 960 Save R104 (15%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

This real-time, historical record of the New York Yankees from their hometown newspaper allows you to experience over a century of the pride, power, and pinstripes of Major League Baseball's most successful team. There has never been a team that has won as many World Series titles, hit as many home runs, or had as many great superstars as The New York Yankees. The New York Times Story of the Yankees includes more than 390 articles chronicling the team's rich history through the best writing on the ball club by beloved Times reporters like Arthur Daley, Red Smith, George Vecsey, Tyler Kepner, and more. Organized by era, the book covers the biggest stories and events in Yankee history, such as the purchase of Babe Ruth, Roger Maris's 61st home run, and Derek Jeter's last game. This completely up-to-date through 2020 edition, including the Aaron Boone era and the rise of Aaron Judge, is illustrated with hundreds of black-and-white photographs that capture every era. A foreword by diehard Yankees fan, Alec Baldwin, completes the celebration of baseball's greatest team.

Everything Matters in Baseball - The Skip Bertman Story (Hardcover): Glenn Guilbeau Everything Matters in Baseball - The Skip Bertman Story (Hardcover)
Glenn Guilbeau
R751 Discovery Miles 7 510 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book is about former LSU head baseball coach Skip Bertman, the man who brought winning baseball to LSU. It sheds light on Skip's work ethic, inventiveness, attention to detail, entrepreneurial ability, and overall contributions to LSU in his capacity as Coach and later as Athletic Director. It includes chapters on each of the five National Championships won under his direction, beginning in 1991; it reveals his secrets to training great pitchers who later pitched in the Major League; and it shows how he embraced and used "The Power of Positive Thinking" throughout his career. The book is based in part on personal observations by the author, a veteran sportswriter, and numerous interviews with Skip's former players, colleagues and family members. (Illustrated with color and black-and-white photos.)

Heads-Up Baseball (Paperback, Ed): Tom Hanson, Ken Ravizza Heads-Up Baseball (Paperback, Ed)
Tom Hanson, Ken Ravizza
R429 R350 Discovery Miles 3 500 Save R79 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

"This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills which help speed you to your full potential."---Dave Winfield

What does it mean to play heads-up baseball? A heads-up player has confidence in his ability, keeps control in pressure situations, and focuses on one pitch at a time. His mental skills enable him to play consistently at or near his best despite the adversity baseball presents each day.

"My ability to fully focus on what I had to do on a daily basis was what made me the successful player I was. Sure I had some natural ability, but that only gets you so far. I think I learned how to focus; it wasn't something that I was necessarily born with." -- Hank Aaron

"Developing and refining my mental game has played a critical role in my success in baseball. For years players have had to develop these skills on their own. This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills that will help speed you toward your full potential." -- Dave Winfield

Betting Baseball 2019 (Paperback): Michael Murray Betting Baseball 2019 (Paperback)
Michael Murray
R760 Discovery Miles 7 600 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Last Seasons in Havana - The Castro Revolution and the End of Professional Baseball in Cuba (Hardcover): Cesar Brioso Last Seasons in Havana - The Castro Revolution and the End of Professional Baseball in Cuba (Hardcover)
Cesar Brioso
R785 R652 Discovery Miles 6 520 Save R133 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

2020 SABR Baseball Research Award Last Seasons in Havana explores the intersection between Cuba and America's pastime from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when Fidel Castro overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Cesar Brioso takes the reader through the triumph of the revolution in 1959 and its impact on professional baseball in the seasons immediately following Castro's rise to power. Baseball in pre-Castro Cuba was enjoying a golden age. The Cuban League, which had been founded in 1878, just two years after the formation of the National League, was thriving under the auspices of organized baseball. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, players from the Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, and Negro Leagues had come to Cuba to play in the country's wholly integrated winter baseball league. Cuban teams had come to dominate the annual Caribbean Series tournament, and Havana had joined the highest levels of Minor League Baseball, fielding the Havana Sugar Kings of the Class AAA International League. Confidence was high that Havana might one day have a Major League team of its own. But professional baseball became one of the many victims of Castro's Communist revolution. American players stopped participating in the Cuban League, and Cuban teams moved to an amateur, state-sponsored model. Focusing on the final three seasons of the Cuban League (1958-61) and the final two seasons of the Havana Sugar Kings (1959-60), Last Seasons in Havana explores how Castro's rise to power forever altered Cuba and the course of a sport that had become ingrained in the island's culture over the course of almost a century.

Intangibles - Big-League Stories and Strategies for Winning the Mental Game-In Baseball and in Life (Hardcover): Geoff Miller Intangibles - Big-League Stories and Strategies for Winning the Mental Game-In Baseball and in Life (Hardcover)
Geoff Miller
R760 Discovery Miles 7 600 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell: Speed, Grace, and the Negro Leagues (Paperback): Lonnie Wheeler The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell: Speed, Grace, and the Negro Leagues (Paperback)
Lonnie Wheeler
R291 Discovery Miles 2 910 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The first full biography of the star Negro Leaguer and Hall of Famer-now in paperback James "Cool Papa" Bell was a legend in Black baseball, a lightning fast switch hitter elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell's speed was extraordinary; as Satchel Paige famously quipped, he was so fast he could flip a light switch and be in bed before the room got dark.In The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell, experienced baseball writer and historian Lonnie Wheeler recounts the life of this extraordinary player, a key member of some of the greatest Negro League teams in history. Born to sharecroppers in Mississippi, Bell was part of the Great Migration, and in St. Louis, baseball saved Bell from a life working in slaughterhouses. Wheeler charts Bell's ups and downs in life and in baseball, in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, where he went to escape American racism and MLB's color line. Rich in context and suffused in myth, this is a treat for fans of baseball history.

One Man Out - Curt Flood Versus Baseball (Paperback): Robert Michael Goldman One Man Out - Curt Flood Versus Baseball (Paperback)
Robert Michael Goldman
R798 Discovery Miles 7 980 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

When Curt Flood, all-star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, refused to be traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1968, he sent shock waves throughout professional baseball that ultimately reached the Supreme Court. Flood challenged the game's reserve clause system that bound players to teams as if they were property; and while others had previously spoken out against this arrangement, protected by Congress and the courts for a century, he was the first to pursue his grievance as doggedly or as far.

Robert Goldman now offers a new look at Flood's efforts to shake the foundations of major league baseball. "One Man Out" takes readers back to the pre-steroid era when baseball was as much a passion as a pastime-and when race was often still a factor-to focus on decisions made in the courtrooms rather than the dugouts.

Flood claimed that the prevailing system was illegal because it violated the Sherman antitrust laws by allowing teams to monopolize the sport in a way that impeded players' freedom and financial gain-and was even unconstitutional because it, in effect, imposed a form of slavery. Baseball owners countered that players owed their success to the reserve system because it maintained competitive balance among teams and heightened interest in the game, which helped fund their high salaries.

Although the Supreme Court ruled against Flood, it left the door open to legislation that would remove baseball's special exemption from antitrust regulation and to future collective bargaining. With its credibility enhanced, the players' union continued negotiations until it finally won a version of free agency very similar to Flood's, with his final vindication coming in the form of the Curt Flood Act of 1998.

In replaying the confrontation between Flood and baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Goldman demonstrates that even a lost lawsuit, with its game-like competition, can be a landmark. And by telling the inside story of the case, he highlights a key labor relations issue in America's most popular sport. Concise and balanced, and written in a fast-paced narrative style, "One Man Out" reminds students, general readers, and fans that Flood holds a unique and important place in both baseball and American law.

Isabel "Lefty" Alvarez - The Improbable Life of a Cuban American Baseball Star (Hardcover): Kat D. Williams Isabel "Lefty" Alvarez - The Improbable Life of a Cuban American Baseball Star (Hardcover)
Kat D. Williams
R729 Discovery Miles 7 290 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Kat D. Williams traces Isabel "Lefty" Alvarez's life from her childhood in Cuba, where she played baseball with the boys on the streets of El Cerro, to her reinvention as a professional baseball player and American citizen. Isabel "Lefty" Alvarez gives the reader a look into Alvarez's young life in Cuba during the turbulent years leading up to Castro's revolution, as political differences tore families apart. Alvarez came to the United States at fifteen, speaking no English, and experienced the challenge of immigration as her mother pushed her to become a professional athlete in her newly adopted country. Through all the changes and upheaval, Alvarez found acceptance and success as a player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, where she was called "the Rascal of El Cerro." After the league ended, Alvarez struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability that limited her options. She persevered and reinvented herself as a factory worker but later battled alcoholism and depression until baseball returned to her life and she was able to reconnect with her former teammates and become part of the active community of former players. Alvarez's life story illustrates the struggle and strength of a young Latina immigrant and the importance of sport to her transition to her new country and her enduring identity.

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